| |
Our Staff
President of the Board of Directors and Legal Director
James Wheaton is President of the Board of Directors and Legal Director of the Environmental Law Foundation, in Oakland, and Senior Counsel for the First Amendment Project. He teaches Journalism Law at the Graduate Schools of Journalism at both Stanford and UC Berkeley. He has been honored for his work with awards by California Lawyer as Attorney of the Year, Playboy Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists Northern California Chapter, and the Ecology Law Quarterly. His political work includes writing and running or chairing campaigns for statewide initiatives in the last 25 years on topics such as insurance regulation, campaign finance and political reform, marijuana legalization, old growth forestry, consumer privacy, and litigation reform. As a volunteer he is an Advisor to the California State Bar's Environment Section Executive Committee and chaired its Yosemite Environmental Institute. He is a Trustee of River Network, and past-President of Friends of the River. He has served as a City of Oakland Public Ethics Commissioner, as Executive Director of California Common Cause, and as chair of the Society of Professional Journalists (NorCal) FOI Committee. He is a graduate of Brown University and Berkeley Law School. He is a white water rafter and kayaker, trains whitewater guides, skippers a sailboat on San Francisco Bay, canoes and has recently retired from 7 years of coaching Little League baseball, and still umpires. He has been noted for his work in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, California Lawyer, Playboy, Outside and Rolling Stone magazines.
Executive Director Danielle Fugere serves as Executive Director of ELF, leading the organization in its mission of protecting the environment, improving environmental quality for communities, and safeguarding consumers from harmful toxics. Danielle brings to this position policy expertise and an extensive background in environmental litigation. Danielle was previously the Legal Director and West Coast Regional Program Director for Friends of the Earth, a national non-profit organization, where she spearheaded innovative legal strategies to reduce global warming pollution and directed campaigns to reduce vehicle and vessel pollution, prevent climate change, and promote the use of sustainable alternative energies and fuels. Danielle also co-founded and was managing partner of Environmental Advocates, a law firm that successfully enforced state and federal environmental laws on behalf of a variety of non-profit organizations. In this work, she was instrumental in securing broad compliance with environmental laws; industry conversions to cleaner and more environmentally sound technologies; and settlements to redress harm to the environment, including a settlement with the City and County of Los Angeles that resulted in a $2.1 billion upgrade of the City's sanitary sewer system. Danielle continues to serve as an Advisor to the Executive Committee of the California State Bar Environmental Section and was an adjunct Professor with the Golden Gate School of Law from 2005 through 2010. Danielle was awarded the WaterKeeper's Environmental Achievement Award in 2000 in recognition of her outstanding achievement in protecting California waters from pollution, reducing consumer exposure to toxic chemicals, and compelling polluters to assume the costs of environmental degradation. Danielle holds a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and a B.A. in political economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Operations Director/Legal Administrator Nicole Feliciano graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology in 2005. Her quest for a socially rewarding way to earn a living led her to ELF. After three years working for a private law firm, Nicole is happy to support an organization committed to Environmental and Social Justice. |
